Sharp
by Kathryn Claire O'Connor
Summary: "Some memories remain so sharp... that they could have happened yesterday. Others have even grown sharper with time. Those are the ones that I want to tell you about." Passing mentions of drug abuse, sex, domestic abuse and smoking. Amanda's POV.
1. Chapter 1 - prologue

Mostly my memories of my teenage years are a fuzzy blur at best, if they hadn't been stolen away entirely by the drugs and nicotine that I had frequently indulged in at that time. Some memories, though, remain so sharp that they could have happened yesterday. Others have even grown sharper with time.

Those are the ones that I want to tell you about. It's a hard story, both to tell and to hear, but it is being repeated so frequently in our nation today that I feel it needs to be told. I want to warn others before they head down the road that I was on. After all, not many stories like mine have as happy an ending as mine does.

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**Tiny prologue, I know, but please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! I'll probably post chapters of this in between chapters of my Criminal Minds/iCarly crossover, When Things Happen. Thanks!:)**


	2. The Clock

I've always placed the beginning of the story at my sixteenth birthday. Now, let the record show, I was already anything but the golden child at this point. I had a boyfriend of which my mother did not approve – he's currently serving time for all sorts of theft, drug, and domestic violence related charges. I had let my grades slide to a nearly dangerous degree, and to top it all off, I was doing drugs. The only thing that I was addicted to at that time, though, was the nicotine that I got through smoking, not that I support that at all anymore.

Here's the thing, for their sixteenth birthdays, most girls want cars, shopping sprees, etc. I was not one of those girls. Me? I just wanted to see my dad again. Of course, this is what I had wished for on every birthday since he had left my mother and I, which meant for the past eight years. I was turning sixteen this year, though, and that was a big deal, right? I was determined that this year was going to be the year that he finally came to see me again.

My mother had tried long and hard to prepare me for the worst – or the inevitable, however you care to think about it, since it's the same thing in this case – but I was fiercely loyal. It can be easy to be loyal to someone you haven't seen in half of your life and have chosen to remember up to that point as being tantamount to a superhero. If you want to remain loyal to them, that is. And I did want to, desperately, foolishly so.

It was a crushing blow when he didn't show up that day for my party, or at all. He couldn't even be bothered to call me, it seemed.

My self-esteem hit rock bottom that night. I had stayed awake late, just knowing that he was going to call me. It was my sixteenth birthday, after all; he just had to contact me today.

I can still remember as clear as day rolling over in my bed and checking the time on my alarm clock. My eyes focused on the glaring numbers just in time for me to see them turn from 11:59 pm to 12:00 am. And that was when it first hit me just how little he now cared for me.

I was heartbroken. In fully acknowledging what I had truly known for a very long time, I felt deeply hurt - wounded, abandoned, and even betrayed by the man that I had wanted so badly to be able to trust, believe in, and count on to somehow manage to be there for me. It was then that I realized that for the past eight years, he hadn't been there for me, not once, and the only thing that I could count on from him was disappointment.

But I knew of someone who wouldn't disappoint me, someone who I thought at the time really loved me.

My boyfriend.

So without another thought, I snuck out of the house and stumbled a couple of streets down to his place. I knocked softly on his bedroom window, shivering because of the light drizzle coming down and crying because of an entirely different reason. He didn't seem too happy to have had me interrupt his beauty sleep, but he let me in nonetheless.

It was only once I was inside, away from the rain, that he noticed that I was crying.

"What's wrong, babe?" he had asked, pulling me close.

I had breathed deeply, taking in his scent of nicotine and cheap, knock-off cologne, then coughed and made a fruitless attempt at wiping my eyes before I spilled out my story from in between my sobs. I told him how my father hadn't called, had probably forgotten my birthday entirely, and didn't even love me.

Here my boyfriend, Matthew, had seen a chance to score some points and make another go at what he had been after for awhile.

"But I love you," Matthew had reassured me tenderly. "I just wish that you'd let me show you how much."

I had kissed boys before - after all, it seemed like everyone kissed when they were in a relationship, so that made it okay, right? - but I had never let it go beyond that first base with any boy before. That night, though, I had been too exhausted, emotionally, mentally, and physically, to fight him on it, and I just let it happen.

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**The story gets better, I promise! Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks! I'll probably post chapters of this in between chapters of my Criminal Minds/iCarly crossover, "When Things Happen," or at least that's the plan, even if I seem to have developed a bad habit of not sticking to it.:)**


	3. The Lighting

Matthew and I didn't last long after that, but that was okay, I knew that there were plenty of other fish in the sea. I learned quickly that giving myself away physically often got me more attention and longer relationships then when I hadn't been willing to do so. I didn't let myself pay any attention to the fact that the type of guys my new tactics got me were more often than not of an indecent sort.

And this was the attitude with which I approached my freshman year at Valdosta State University and my fellow student, athlete David Thomson. Everyone on the school campus at least knew who he was, although before the party that changed both of our lives forever I couldn't have told you whether or not he knew my name or if I was just another one of the cheerleaders to him. But by the morning following the party, he knew me in ways that had nothing to do with my moniker.

I don't remember much about that night exactly – like I said before, alcohol has a way of helping with that, and I was definitely drunk – but I do remember the lights. Someone had managed to find a strobe light and string it up, adding to the already wild atmosphere. Because of the lights, David was bathed in a blue glow of sorts when he approached me. I can't really recall what he said to me or how it happened exactly, and I probably wouldn't want to even if I could remember. All I know for absolute certain about that night with him is that it did happen, and it changed both of our lives forever.

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**The story gets better, I promise! Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks! And, you know what? For the record, I think that we all might as well abolish the plan that I had for updates.:)**


	4. The Contrast

For weeks after that night, I didn't think a thing in the world about it. I summed up my sudden, frequent bouts of vomiting up to an extra-log-lasting flu bug and other obvious signs of my condition up to the stress and hectic lifestyle of college living, and I went on my way. Two months into my "flu bug" though, my college roommate, Kasey, was worried for me. Knowing my reputation with boys as she did, she saw my sickness for the pregnancy that it was and gave me an ultimatum: I took a pregnancy test on my own, or she dragged me to the nearest OB/GYN.

I decided to save ourselves the gas money and doctor's bills and take the test, which I had already convinced myself was going to be negative even before I took it. But it wasn't negative. It was positive. A tiny, pink plus sign that was going to ruin my life, or so I thought.

And even though my thoughts and emotions had been well and truly scrambled during those minutes that I had sat on the bathroom floor frozen by shock, I can still remember having the most irrational thought at that moment. The plus sign didn't match the rest of the bathroom.

The tile floor had been white. The sink had been white. The toilet, shower, and shower curtain had all been white. Even the socks that I had been wearing and the test that I had been holding were white.

But that little, pink plus sign just threw everything off.

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**The story gets better, I promise! Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks! And, you know what? For the record, I think that I can say that most of these chapters are going to be drabble-sized.:)**


	5. The Question

Kasey is as blunt and sensible as anyone ever was, yet she cares about her friends deeply too. I think that this knowledge of her personality was part of what made me dread telling her the outcome of the test. But as I sat there on the cold, hard bathroom floor and stared at that little, pink symbol, I knew that she was just on the other side of the closed door, waiting for the information that I didn't want to give her. I had realized then that there would be no getting anything around her.

So I had thrown away the test, grappled my way onto my feet, and opened the bathroom door, walking straight past Kasey to flop face-down onto my bed.

"So?" she'd asked anxiously.

I had mumbled the answer into my pillow, knowing that she wouldn't be able to understand what I was saying.

Blunt as ever, she had guessed, "You're pregnant?"

Still unable to make myself look at my friend's face, I had turned onto my back, pulled the pillow over my head, and nodded. Up until then I had been numb, like I was in a fog, but with that admission came the lifting of the fog. I had begun to cry, and then sob outright, as I realized what I had gotten myself into. Kasey had held me close in a long, almost motherly hug and whispered reassurances to me as if I were a child. Once we were both sure that I was cried out for then, Kasey had released mea and I had crawled under the covers of my bed and pulled them over my head, ready to hide from the world until this especially difficult problem went away.

Kasey had stayed sitting on the edge of my bed and silence had prevailed for a few minutes before she had asked crisply, "So, who's dying, you or the baby?"

At this disturbing question, I had flung the covers back from off of my face and sat up, asking, "What?"

She had repeated the question, then explained carefully, "You're going to have to give something up, Amanda, whether it's your plans that you have f0r college… or your baby's life. I'll help you any way that I can, but I don't know that it's feasible to continue all of the courses that you have going _and _raise a baby. That's just too much for anyone to deal with, even with help."

I had thought about this for a long minute before deciding, "I don't need to make a decision just yet. I need to talk to David first."

"David?" Kasey had asked with a raised eyebrow. "Who's he?"

"You know, David Thomson. The athlete guy."

Kasey had put her head in her hands. "He's the father?"

I'd nodded, made even more nervous about the situation because of Kasey's despairing expression.

"Do you want me to come with you?" she'd asked.

I'd shaken my head and swung my legs around off of the bed, standing up and grabbing my shoes. "I'll be fine."

And I had been naive enough to believe what I'd said.

As I had walked across campus, Kasey's words had kept playing through my head. _So, who's dying, you or the baby? You're going to have to give something up, Amanda, whether it's your plans that you have f0r college… or your baby's life._ The way that she'd said it had made it seem like getting an abortion would be committing a murder, and though I knew nothing else at that point, I knew that I couldn't become a murderer. I knew that the baby would be born.

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**The story gets better, I promise! Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks! And, you know what? For the record, I think that I can say that most of these chapters are going to be drabble-sized (under 500 words).:)**


	6. The Stars

When I had arrived at the door of David's dorm room, I was shaking I was so nervous. After all, I didn't really know anything about this guy. I did not know the father of my child. I had taken a deep breath to fortify myself and then knocked on the door.

David's roommate, I would learn later that his name was John, had opened the door. "Hey…" I could tell that he was trying to place me, but we had never met before, so he was out of luck. Eventually he settled for asking, "Do you need something?"

"Is David here? I need to talk to him." I had been surprised at the steadiness of my own voice; after all, I was falling apart on the inside.

"Yeah, sure." John had motioned me inside, calling out, "David, there's a cheerleader here to see you."

I had wondered for a split second how he had known that I was a cheerleader, then I had remembered that I had put my hair up using the ribbons that the cheerleaders were given as a part of their uniform.

David had peered around the corner to see who his visitor was. Recognition had flared in his eyes and he'd given John a look that had asked him to leave. I had swallowed nervously as John had tipped an imaginary hat to me and said "I guess I'll leave you kids to it" as he'd backed out the door. The door had closed soundly behind him, loud in the suddenly silent apartment. The silence itself had become deafening to me in the few seconds before David had leaned casually against the doorway and offered, "Make yourself comfortable. You're… Miranda, right? From one of the parties?"

I had dropped onto the edge of a nearby sofa, correcting, "Amanda."

"Right." David had nodded and sat down on the opposite end of the couch. "To what do I owe the pleasure of the repeated presence of a pretty girl?"

If the situation had been different, I would have considered his eloquence funny, but nothing would have been funny at that moment. "Don't get too happy about a pretty girl too quickly." I had said softly.

"Why not?" David had asked, his eyebrows rising as he moved closer to me on the couch.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious alongside being nervous, I had moved away, keeping the distance between us the same as it had been before. "Because you already got this pretty girl pregnant."

"What?" he'd asked, brows creasing in confusion like he didn't understand what I'd meant.

"I'm pregnant." I'd repeated, keeping my gaze locked on my clenched hands. "You're the father."

"What?" he'd whispered again. "Are you sure?"

"That I'm pregnant or that you're dad, 'cause the answer is yes to both questions."

Silence had reigned for a few seconds after my moment of snappishness, but then David had demanded, "Then just get rid of it."

It actually took me a second to realize what he meant, and when I did, my "no!" slid off of my tongue before it ran through my startled brain.

This answer actually made him look at me for the first time since I'd told him. "What do you mean 'no'?" His tone had changed to something darker, but I was already too much of a mess to realize it.

"I mean no. I won't do it. I'm not getting an abortion."

"Why on earth not? You'll recover from it, I'm sure."

"I'm not worried about me," I'd tried to explain it to him. "I don't want to hurt the baby."

"How do you know that it's a baby?"

Then I had noticed the change in him, the way that he'd growled the question meant that I couldn't miss it even if I had wanted to. And I did want to. Just like with my father years ago, I realized then, that I had desperately wanted him to make everything okay. I had wanted him to promise to take care of me, of us – me and the baby. But I also realized that, just like with my father, he would do no such thing.

Even so, I had tried to explain my thoughts to him. "Well, I don't know for sure that it is or isn't, but if it is, I don't want to be the one to kill a child. So, no, I just can't."

"Yes, you can." He was mad now, and it wasn't a request. It was a demand, an irate one at that.

"No," I had repeated softly, scrambling to think of ways to calm him down.

But it had been too late.

Red, green, and blue.

I remember that those were the exact colors of the stars that had exploded in my vision when I fell off of the couch – when David had hit me.

He and I had both frozen – him still on the couch, me on my hands and knees crab-style on the floor – and stared at each other for a long moment. I had gotten the impression that he was just as surprised as I was at the way he had lashed out. Surprisingly, I had won our little staring contest.

He had blinked first, and then surged off of the couch and towards the door, saying stiffly over his shoulder, "Lock the door behind you when you leave."

And then he had slammed the door behind himself, leaving me alone with his baby growing inside of me.

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**I say that the chapters are going to be drabble-length and then what? The next two chapters aren't. Anyway, we're halfway done with this story! The story gets better, I promise! You'll get a ray of sunshine in the next chapter. Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks!**


	7. The Peace

Unable to stand being in his dorm room for one moment longer, I had left as soon as I could see through my tears and pain. I had considered going back to my own dorm room, but there was no way that I could have let Kasey see the black eye that I knew was forming. She would have hunted David down and tried to kill him. Although her rage probably would have made up for it, she is smaller than I am, and I hadn't wanted to find out what he would have done to her had she tried to hurt him. So I had left campus instead. I had gone on foot, not knowing where I was going, just that I needed to move.

I had ended up in a cathedral of all places. The building had been huge, empty, and eerily quiet. I had slid into the back pew, as silent as my surroundings.

During the times that I had gone to church before my father left my mother and I – after his departure, I had refused to attend – church had seemed like a happy place. At that moment though, alone in the cathedral, the silence had just seemed dark and oppressive. So I had broken that silence, letting the sound of my soft sobbing echo around me.

The tears had only made my eye hurt worse, but I had continued crying for awhile until I once again felt like I had no more tears left in me. And that's when I had noticed the tract. It had been forgotten by someone and left in the pew near where I had been seated, a simple, unassuming little piece of green paper folded in thirds and bearing the declaration "Jesus Loves Even Me (and YOU!)" But in the half an hour that had followed, that tract had been the tool that God had used to change my life irrevocably and give me "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding."

And against all odds, I had left that cathedral with my mind made up, a smile on my lips, and an absolutely unforgettable peace in my heart.

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**Finally, the drabble-sized chapter that I've been promising you! And that ray of sunshine, too! Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks!:)**


	8. The Statement

But just because I had been saved, that didn't mean that all of my problems had magically vanished. Quite the opposite, actually; they had just been getting started.

After my first trimester, my morning sickness had disappeared, thankfully, and – so long as I kept my distance from David Thomson – my life had seemed to almost return to normal for the next three months. As long as I had chosen my outfits carefully, I was blessed in that I stayed skinny enough that you couldn't even have told that I was pregnant.

During the final three months though, my life had began to fall apart. At that point, I could no longer hide my condition, and my cheerleading coach had kicked me off of the squad for the safety of my unborn baby girl. While I had understood the necessity and logic of her action, I had still cried about it a little that evening, immature and selfish as those tears had been.

But that had been nothing when compared to what other people had done and said to me, behind my back at least. And David had been the worst of them all.

I can still to this day remember the first time that I heard him tell someone that – contrary to the rumors that had been floating around – he was not responsible for my getting pregnant. That he wasn't his own baby's dad.

Oh, how much I had cried that day! I had even locked Kasey out of our dorm room until she had managed to pick the lock in her desperation to reach me. She had even been afraid for a little while that I had become suicidal. By my way of thinking though, killing me killed the child inside of me, and I hadn't been about to give David the satisfaction of doing that.

So my being suicidal had not been the case. It had just been that, just like in the situation with my father, it had taken a single, crushing blow for me to realize just how little he had cared. Even though I had long resigned myself to the fact that he hadn't cared for me, and probably never would, some part of me had always kept on hoping that maybe he would be there for his daughter's sake and be a part of her life. But his declaration – the first of many similar ones – had proven even that hope to be an impossibility. It was during that time that I realized that chances were it was only going to be me and my daughter, unless God intervened.

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**Another drabble-sized chapter, like I've been promising you! Please tell me what you think and stay tuned for the next chapter! Thanks!:)**


	9. The Warmth

After that, out of sheer necessity, if not outright self-preservation, I had learned to not only give a wide berth to David, but to faze him out when he hadn't been able to help being nearby. At that time, it had made both of our lives easier if we pretended that the other didn't even exist. So, on the day that I had the baby, it hadn't even crossed my mind on more than one occasion that it might be a good idea to pass the information on to David. And the one time that I had thought about it, I had decided not to.

Instead, I had decided to concentrate on my newborn daughter, whom I had named Olivia. "Olivia" is the Italian version of the name "Olive," and by my way of thinking, the olive leaf in the Biblical account of the Flood in Noah's day was a symbol of new beginnings. I had truly wanted to believe that Olivia's birth would mean a fresh start for us both, and in some ways, it was.

The first time that she had been out in my arms, I really hadn't cared about anything besides her. That moment is still one of my most precious memories. I remember that her warmth had startled me, oddly enough. For all of the hard, judgmental names, looks and cold shoulders that I had gotten because of her existence, Olivia herself had been very soft, warm, and fragile. Essentially, just a normal baby, although to me she had been and still is one of the best things in my life.

It was just me, her, and God against the world, but from that first time that I had held her in my arms, I had known beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would do whatever it took to raise her as well as I could.

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**Another drabble-sized chapter, this one being another ray of sunshine. And we're now three-fourths of the way through the story, so keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter! Reviews make my day, BTW. Thanks!:)**


	10. The Signature

I had just never expected reconciling with David Thomson to be a part of that plan. But there I had been, sitting at my kitchen table almost five years later with a letter and a check both from David in my hands.

If the contents of the letter had been any indication, he had sounded sincere enough for this to be a real attempt from him to reconnect with me. And goodness knew that I understood how the grace of God could change a person's life and outlook. But the question that had remained was: Was I willing to meet with him again after so many years? After all, it wasn't like my previous conversations with the man had gone well by anyone's standards.

My eyebrows had drawn together of their own accord when I had read the words "I have begun to pray for you and Olivia." The David Thomson that I had known would not have prayed under any circumstances, let alone done so for me and the daughter that he had never even met. But it had hit me then that he did apparently want to meet Olivia, to re-earn my trust.

It hadn't seemed real. The thought had crossed my mind that the body of the letter had been typed, so maybe it was fake. But it is his signature that I remember so clearly. Don't ask me how, but I had known that his signature was legitimate; it hadn't been forged. This had actually been happening, and it had been real.

I had sighed then, knowing that I would at least meet him again, as he'd asked, because it might actually turn out that having him in mine and Olivia's lives – or at least primarily Olivia's, and mine by default – could be what was best for her. Beyond that, I hadn't had any idea.

For the second time in my life, I never would have guessed that meeting with him would have the ultimate ending that it did.

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**Another drabble-sized chapter, this one (kind of) being another ray of sunshine. And we're now five-sixths of the way through the story, so keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter! Reviews make my day, BTW. Thanks!:)**


	11. The Sincerity

I had been prepared for practically anything when I had walked into that coffee shop just a week later to meet with David. I had been prepared for anything except for what I had actually gotten, that is.

Nearly everything that I had remembered about David up to that meeting had been cold, cruel, and emotionless. But during that evening, over coffee that he had insisted on paying for, I had seen almost too many emotions in him to name.

Humility that had both stunned me and forced me to reevaluate my opinion of him.

Pain that had resembled my own in ways that I hadn't cared to think him capable of.

Sadness that had spoken of him having as much trouble with our united past as I did, if not for reasons other than my own.

A self-loathing that had matched – if not been greater then – my own feelings about him.

And the most surprising thing of all – the thing that I had noticed then and still recall so clearly even now – had been that all of those emotions had been utterly sincere.

I had felt myself beginning to once again trust him a little even then. And, despite the misgivings that had still remained at that point, I had let him not only into Olivia's life, but also back into my own life.

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**Another drabble-sized chapter, this one (kind of) being another ray of sunshine. And we've now only got one more chapter left in the story, so keep your eyes peeled for the final chapter! Reviews make my day, BTW. Thanks!:)**


	12. The Happiness

Looking back, I'm so glad that I did let him back in. Because it was that day – even all of those terrible, hard days before, really – that had led to today. Today was my wedding day. I had never, not even in my wildest dreams, thought that this day would come. Not because I was getting married, but because of who I was marrying.

It had taken three years of learning to trust him again. Three years of praying as hard as I ever had, and then fighting God and my own emotions on the answer that I received. But we were here now.

And as I stepped out to the edge of the aisle, I realized that what I saw was another memory that was going to be branded into my mind for awhile. Not that I minded. My daughter was walking ahead of me down the aisle, spreading rose petals as she went, and heading towards my fiancé, soon to be husband, both of whom were grinning like mad. Taking stock of my own facial muscles, I realized that I was doing the same thing. That was okay, though. I was getting married; I was supposed to be smiling like crazy right now.

At the front of the aisle now, I reached for David's hand, and he wrapped his fingers around mine.

At that moment, everything came into the sharpest focus. A clock at the back of the church chimed the hour. The light played in David's sandy hair, streaking it golden. Dark red roses decorating the church contrasted against the backdrop of the plain, white walls. At that moment, he looked as full of life as I felt. His eyes sparkled like the brightest stars.

I don't think that I had ever felt a peace like this in my life.

He looked right at me as he repeated his vows, letting me see that he meant every word that he said. The chilliness of his ring felt good in my hand as I slid it onto his finger. His was the neatest signature that I had ever seen as he signed our marriage certificate. And the way that he kissed me once we were finally alone in our house later that night conveyed more emotion then his eyes ever could have.

And I was blissfully happy.

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**Another drabble-sized chapter, this one being another ray of sunshine, which I find is a good note to end a story on. Okay, up next is either a Courageous one-shot or another chapter of When Things Happen. Reviews make my day, BTW. Thanks!:)**


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